Arthritis is medically termed as an inflamation of a joint or joints and is one of a number of diseases and disorders of the skeleton and body system commonly called rheumatism. It arises from many causes, some well-defined, some still unknown, and it is treated in many different ways. There are two common types know as rheumatoid arthritis and degenerative arthritis. The former is a disease not of the joints alone but of the whole bodily system, in particular, the connective body tissue. The latter is a chronic joint disease of age, rarely occurring before the age of 40 in humans. In both cases the manifestations are the same. The joints in the hands, feet and legs are affected. For example, they become swollen and gnarled, so that the digits tend to slant away to the outside. In severe cases unused muscles surrouding the affected area become painful and swollen and joints may become atrophied through non-use.
Various new and old drugs have been developed for the treatment of arthritis, such as cortisone, acth and others, but most have dangerous side effects. Their dosage must be carefully prescribed and administered under controlled conditions and circumstances to avoid very unpleasant side effects. Also, several ointments and liniments have been utilized for the relief of pains and aches of arthritis. Most of these have provided little relief to persons suffering from arthritis.
I have discovered an ointment that can be topically applied to the skin that will bring early relief from the aches and pains of arthritis, reduce the swelling of joints and thereby permit joint and muscular movements that were previously difficult and painful and in some cases impossible.
The ointment is prepared by mixing the following ingredients in these proportions:
1. 1/2 pint of lead-free gasoline PA1 2. 13/4 ounces of ground red pepper PA1 3. 1 pound of petroleum jelly.
The ingredients are throughly blended by agitating in a mechanical mixing devise to form a semi-solid composition.
In the preferred embodiment of the discovery I used a purified semi-solid mixture of petroleum jelly. The petroleum is admixed with ground red pepper derived from dried seeds and pods of the capsicum plant. To this mixture a distilled hydrocarbon product, commonly referred to as lead-free gasoline is added.
It is believed that it is the reaction product which is important to my discovery only and that ideally this product, if isolated and contained in the petroleum base may yet prove to be the commercially feasible ointment. However, it has been proven to be difficult to separate or distill this product from the non-reacting constituent parts.